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Re: Horten 229: What is real, what is exaggeration?
Hello,
The internet has amplified the nonsense level out there to the point where real books written by reliable authors are my primary place to go. The best is written by Reimar Horten and Peter F. Selinger. The title is Nurflügel, ISBN 3-900310-09-2. The text is in German and English, but it would help to know a little German as at least one German photo caption is not translated into English properly. There were at least two test pilots. Lt. Erwin Ziller died in a crash, the other reported the H IX was no more difficult to fly than existing aircraft.
There is a photo of a test pilot wearing a höhendruckanzug. This is literally a high pressure (flight) suit with helmet. History tells us the Germans had no such suit. In the book, Suiting up for Space by LLoyd Mallan (1971, The John Day Company), the author tells us the Drägerwerke solved the problem of designing such a suit which "...was worn as a full-time suit in unpressurized cabins of aircraft flying above 40,000 feet." My attempt to contact the Drägerwerke about their wartime work was met with no reply.
Was the H IX a stealth aircraft? Just read Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing by Ted Coleman with Robert Wenkman (ISBN 1-55778-079-X). Mr. Coleman was Chairman of the Northrop Aircraft Inc. Board of Directors following World War II. This book will show that the flying wing design was difficult to spot on radar.
As regards the B-2 comparison, it is unmistakable. The buried engines, and while the Hortens' H IX had an obviously useful projecting tip in the back at the end of the center line, the B-2 has such a tip, called the Gust Load Alleviation System (also referred to as the "Beaver Tail" which it does not resemble).
Saying this aircraft 'never existed' is not supported by the facts. Why was a replica of this aircraft built? "...in the fall and winter of 2008, they set about building the full-scale re-creation at a restricted-access Northrop Grumman testing facility in California's Mojave Desert."
Perhaps Northrop Grumman can tell you more.
Best,
Ed West
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